


We Wake Them Up

by Em_Jaye



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Carnivale, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 1930s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Steve Rogers, Body Image, F/M, Great Depression, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Underage, Sex, Sex Positive, Sex Work, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:41:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Darcy Lewis was born in the carnival. At least, that’s what people said. It was kinder than the truth: that Darcy Lewis was likely born in someone’s home but left in a patched-up carpetbag by the ferris wheel when she was no more than a few pounds of screamin’ mad and a swath of thick, dark hair. Wrapped in a tattered blanket, pinned together with a note that read 'Can’t afford another one.'The carnival wasn’t a place for children, but they made a place for Darcy. They named her after the first intersection they came to on their way out of town. Darcy Boulevard and Lewis Street. And then she was theirs. The youngest member of the Kirby Brothers Traveling Carnival of Marvels.
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau, Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, Gamora/Peter Quill
Comments: 72
Kudos: 158





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came from a recent rewatch of one of the best shows HBO ever made. Carnivàle was amazing and taken from us much too soon. This is a heavy fusion, which means you will find lines of dialogue and scenarios lifted from the original show as well as a bunch of shit I made up on my own. 
> 
> I made a photoset for this bad boy as well, please dig: https://idontgettechnology.tumblr.com/post/622539063068655616/we-wake-them-up-a-1930s-traveling-carnival-au-no

i.

_You know, the people in these towns, they're asleep. All day, at work, at home. They're sleepwalkers. We wake them up_.

-Carnivàle 0101 "Milfay"

Darcy Lewis was born in the carnival. At least, that’s what people said. It was kinder than the truth: that Darcy Lewis was likely born in someone’s home but left in a patched-up carpetbag by the ferris wheel when she was no more than a few pounds of screamin’ mad and a swath of thick, dark hair. Wrapped in a tattered blanket, pinned together with a note that read _Can’t afford another one._

The carnival wasn’t a place for children, but they made a place for Darcy. They named her after the first intersection they came to on their way out of town. Darcy Boulevard and Lewis Street. And then she was theirs. The youngest member of the Kirby Brothers Traveling Carnival of Marvels.

She grew up drifting from tent to tent. First fetching and carrying tools and parts for the rousties while they set up and tore down, then scurrying around the midway. Collecting coins thrown for Carol and Thor while they spun electricity like silk and tossed it back and forth like a ball, or Pepper while she swayed her hips and let a python wind itself around her body, scooping up handfuls of nickels and dimes for Luke while he bent iron bars and ripped nails out of pieces of wood with his teeth. Sometimes Tony and Bruce would draft her into service for their mad scientist act and she’d have to pretend to let them kill her and bring her back to life.

They celebrated her twelfth birthday outside of Red Oak, Iowa. Happy baked her a cake for breakfast and everyone sang to her, dropping kisses to her hair and forehead while she cut and served uneven pieces. Betty and Maria gifted her a new red dress with dark blue piping along the sleeves and skirt. Natasha wrapped up a pair of old pearl earrings and pierced her ears for her, making her swear not to tell anyone who’d done it. The earrings were only paste, but Darcy loved them more than anything she’d ever owned.

The next day, the stock market crashed.

By everyone’s account it was the end of the world. People lost everything in the blink of an eye. By the end of the first week, fourteen other carnivals had gone out of business.

“Are _we_ going to have to fold?” she’d asked at breakfast, watching Fury scan the paper with his one good eye. She didn’t know what that would mean for her. If they all split up, where would she live? Who would she go with? Who would want to take her with them?

Fury might have heard the apprehension in her voice, because he folded the paper down and hooked her with that good eye instead. “Never gonna happen.”

“But all these other outfits…” she said, pointing to the paper.

“You trust me?” he asked, sounding serious. Darcy nodded solemnly. He _was_ the boss, after all. He’d been the one who agreed they could keep her in the first place. “You think I’d let anything happen to you?” She shook her head. “We’re not gonna fold,” he promised, and she believed him. “All those other outfits,” he echoed, “are brimming with talent who are now outta work.” She nodded again, not quite following. “Sounds to me like our operation’s likely to get some fresh new acts who can draw a crowd.”

“How will we afford that?”

Fury had tried to look stern, but she’d caught the smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “How about you let me worry about that,” he suggested and swapped the dime novel in her hand for one of her discarded books on grammar. “You get some schoolwork done.”

She’d pouted. “When are you gonna give me a real job?”

He’d returned to his paper. “You’re the one supposed to be looking for one of those.”

“It’d be easier if you just stuck me somewhere.”

“Easier for who?” he asked, turning the page. “I thought I told you to see if Pepper will let you join her act.”

Darcy fidgeted. “I’m too chicken.”

“What are you scared of? The snakes? Or Pepper?”

“Pepper, mostly,” she admitted. “But the snakes too. Give me the creepin’ willies.”

She heard Fury’s smile. “You’ll find something.”

Her pout had intensified. “But I’m not good at anything.” It was true. She’d tried a lot of things in her short life: she’d broken her arm trying to walk the tightrope with T’Challa, was too squeamish to help Scotty with his collection of creepy-crawlies, unable to stop flinching enough for Natasha to throw knives at her or Clint to shoot flaming arrows at her, not fat or bearded or tattooed enough to be her own act in the ten-in-one—

“You’re good at winding me up with all this belly-aching.”

Her sigh was deep and dramatic, even for a twelve-year-old. “Well ain’t nobody gonna pay me for that.”

Without looking at her, he reached out and tapped her grammar book. “You keep reading,” he suggested. “And try sayin’ that again when you finish.”

They picked up a barker named Peter Quill just outside of Chicago before the weather turned cold that year. He was handsome, charming, and had spent most of his life on the circuit—he could talk the leg off a chair. Quill’s wife, Gamora, was the most beautiful woman Darcy had ever seen. She had long, graceful, slender limbs and tawny brown skin, brown eyes that almost looked gold in certain light, and a head of thick, dark red hair. Gamora had a sister, Nebula—a contortionist so flexible it seemed like she could disassemble her body and put it back together before the audience’s eyes.

But more than just these beautiful women and a fresh voice for the bally, Peter Quill brought with him something they hadn’t had at Kirby Bros for over a decade: a cooch tent called The Carpe Noctem.

***

Steve Rogers was not born or raised in a carnival. He’d grown up in Brooklyn, intending to stay there until he died, taking care of his mother, living across the hall from his best friend, and maybe writing cartoons for the paper once he finished art school.

But when the market crashed, it took with it his prospects for a full-time job and his ma’s health. A year after that, it took her life. And a year after _that,_ an accident at the factory where he and Bucky had managed to scrape together enough hours to make ends meet took Bucky’s left arm. The same accident left Steve with a limp on his right leg, deep scars from where the fire had licked up his right side and chest, and a permanent case of vertigo.

His old boss hadn’t been completely heartless, despite throwing them both out on their asses when it became obvious neither would be able to do what he needed anymore. “I know a guy,” he’d said as he’d handed Steve their last paltry paychecks. “It ain’t glamorous work,” he’d said right away. “But it’ll keep you outta the breadline, so long as Barnes can still be useful.”

It wasn’t glamorous work. But it was still work—building and painting sets for a string of vaudeville theatres. Neither of them really wanted to leave New York, but when the theaters started going under and the shows started to go on the road, they didn’t have much of a choice but to follow.

That lasted four years; Steve and Bucky hopped tours that played small towns for peanuts, riding trains and sleeping in piles like a bunch of puppies in a single car to keep warm. Then just like everything else, it dried up overnight and the company disbanded after a final show one summer evening in Milwaukee.

It was sheer, dumb luck that they ended up in the same bar as Sam Wilson and he decided to save their lives.

When Sam had told them he was with the Kirby Brothers Carnival, and that his boss was looking for two more rousties to make up for the three that had just taken a powder, Bucky had said yes for both of them. It didn’t matter that they didn’t know what a roustie was. That neither of them had ever worked for a carnival before. That aside from Coney Island, they’d never even _been_ to a carnival before. Didn’t matter. Sam said the show needed rousties and they were willing to pay weekly, so rousties was what they were going to be.

“So long as you pull your weight,” Sam had said with a friendly smile that showed a gap between his two front teeth. He didn’t look at the sleeve pinned up to Bucky’s left shoulder, but Steve thought that was probably because he was too polite.

Steve had assumed that Sam was a roustie too, based on the way he talked. But he wasn’t. He was a lifelong carny, but Sam didn’t set up the big top. He performed in it to thunderous applause.

Because Sam could _fly._

Sam and his co-star, Hope, were trapeze artists. They balanced high above the crowds on the balls of their feet, barely touching the swinging bars and tossing— _throwing_ —one another back and forth. Sam could do half the act with only one arm, using the other to carry Hope back and forth over the sparkling eyes of the crowd, a firm grip on her ankle or hand while she twisted her body into a host of shapes and defied death with every swing across the tent.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Bucky murmured as they stood in the back behind the stands. “Like they never even heard of gravity.”

Steve had to laugh at that, deciding as Sam and Hope landed together, light as a feather and the house went up in a roar of applause, that he preferred the carnival to vaudeville after all.

***

Darcy had been dancing the cooch for seven years by the time Sam brought Steve and Bucky into the breakfast tent to be introduced. They were two well-mannered, broad-shouldered boys from New York who did their jobs and kept to themselves. Although Sam, with his rich, booming voice and his almost-too-loveable charm, insisted on bringing them around to each group and making sure everyone was on a first name basis.

“Bout time we had some decent men to look at,” Ellie commented after they’d shaken hands and Darcy had to force herself not to stare at the spot where Bucky’s arm used to be. She’d seen plenty worse after twenty years on the road, and if Fury thought he could still build and tear down with rest of the crew, she wasn’t going to question the boss.

“I heard that,” Sam called over his shoulder while he ushered the two new rousties toward where Carol and Maria were sharing a bowl of oatmeal. “And I’m deeply offended!”

Ellie’s laugh was deep and throaty. “You know there’s not nearly enough of you to go around, Wilson!” she called back, shaking her head.

Darcy stirred sugar into her coffee with a smile. Elektra—Ellie when she was off-stage—had joined the outfit a few months after The Carpe Noctem had become a fixture of Kirby Brothers. Tall and statuesque with an ocean of black hair, smooth olive skin, and sharp brown eyes, Darcy had been unable to take her eyes off her when she snuck into the cooch tent to watch her dance with Gamora. The two of them moved with a kind of weaponized sexuality that had twelve-year-old Darcy hypnotized.

That was what she wanted to do, she’d decided as Gamora and Elektra wrapped themselves around one another and it rained silver from the rowdy crowd of men in Cottonwood, Kansas. She wanted to be a woman like them—bold and spellbinding and playing this rough crowd like a piano. Not a dumpy kid who everyone treated like a baby even though she was _practically_ grown.

“How old are you?” Quill had asked her the next afternoon when she’d broached the topic of her coming to work for him. He’d been sitting on the steps outside the costume car, cutting an apple with a pocketknife.

“Fifteen,” she’d lied, standing up straighter.

Quill had nodded, smiling as he popped an apple slice into his mouth and spoke while he chewed. “Uh-huh. And how old are you really?”

Her shoulders had dropped. “Almost thirteen.”

“Well,” he’d given her a look up and down, noticing all the same things every other mark along the midway did when they looked at her lately. “I don’t take on dancers younger than thirteen. So why don’t you learn some steps before then and come back after your next birthday.”

But Ellie had noticed her before that and taken pity on her. She’d taught her how to curl her hair at night, so that it fell in waves that were glossy instead of frizzy. She’d plucked and contoured her thick eyebrows and showed her how to do her make up. She and Gamora had taught her a few dances and Gamora had lent her a pair of high heels for her audition.

Fury had been…well…furious. But even he couldn’t deny it was something she was good at. Especially when, after her first week, The Carpe Noctem had made enough money that the cooks were able to buy fresh eggs, bacon, and orange juice for breakfast.

“I want something clear, Quill,” she’d overheard him saying to Peter when she’d walked past the management trailer a few days later. “She can work for you as long as _she_ wants, understood? She is not one of your girls, she’s one of _my_ girls and I’ll make sure your whole act stays dark if anyone lays a hand on her.”

Darcy had stopped, her bottom lip between her teeth, affection and exasperation waging a war around her heart.

“You act like I’m some kinda lech, Fury,” Peter had scoffed. “I care about her too—she’s like a little sister. I’m keeping an eye on her. Don’t worry.”

There had been a pause between them so long that Darcy had almost poked her head around the corner to see if they were still there. Finally, Fury spoke again. “And absolutely no tricks.”

But he’d been forced to come around on that, too. The summer before her sixteenth birthday, when they had next to nothing in the kitty and management told Fury that Darcy could either turn tricks like the other girls or he could start making cuts.

It was fine. She didn’t mind it. It was part of the job and, after a while, something else for which she developed a talent.

***

For a while things were good. Darcy had her own money, mostly enough to eat, all the mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters she could have ever wanted, and the sticky sweet smell of kettle corn to wash out of her hair every few days.

And then one miserably hot night, three months before her twenty-first birthday, in Anniston, Alabama, Ellie went for a walk with one of her johns. The last time Darcy saw her alive, she was looking back over her shoulder, waving with a little wiggle of her fingers. Dazzlingly beautiful beneath the strings of white lights.

Clint told her she screamed when Luke brought Ellie’s body back from where he’d found her strung up near the tree line. He said he heard her all the way on the other side of the big top. But she didn’t remember that. She didn’t remember anything other than the rope still around Ellie’s long neck from where Luke had pulled her down much too late. Her skin gone grey and ashy. Her makeup pooled beneath her lifeless eyes. And one word cut deep into her forehead.

 _Whore_.

***

Clint wasn’t the only one who heard Darcy screaming. Steve heard her in his little corner on the opposite side of the ten-in-one. He’d finished his last portrait for the night and was packing up his pencils and easel when the sound pierced through the night. Not the excited squeals of children on the ferris wheel or carousel, but a sharp howl of pain that cut through him like a knife.

He didn’t know who it was, but the sound had him on his feet and moving as fast as his bum leg would take him, ducking around patrons and under banners. He skidded to a stop outside the cooch and the heart that had been pounding in his throat plummeted to his stomach. Darcy was on her knees, her hands over her mouth, stifling a cascade of hiccupping sobs. Gamora had gathered Ellie’s limp body into her arms. Blood smeared on Gamora’s skin and the edge of her silk nightgown. Ellie’s blood—from where the rope had bit into her neck.

Someone crashed into him from behind. “What’s all the—” Maria’s voice cut off with a sickly gasp. “Oh my God…”

Darcy looked up and turned to look in their direction. Fat tears streaked down her crumpled face and she helplessly reached out a trembling hand. “Maria,” she choked. “Look what they did—”

Steve was stuck in place, transfixed by the ugliness of the scene, the brutality of what had been done to Ellie’s beautiful face. Maria pushed past him and wrapped her arms around Darcy, pressing her face into shoulder, trying to shield her from something that had already been burned into her mind.

Another bump from behind. Bucky this time. When he turned, Bucky’s eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open. “Get Fury,” Steve said finally. “Get—” he didn’t know who else to call. The police? The medics? “We just gotta get Fury,” he said, shaking his head. There was no reason to try and call a medic.

No one could help Ellie now.

He saw Darcy again the next day, a few hours before the funeral. The sheriff of Anniston had come by in the morning, promised to keep an eye out. But everyone knew bullshit when they heard it. Whoever had killed Ellie was likely long gone. There was no justice to be given. No sense to make of this kind of violence.

He’d been milling around, unsure of what to do while they waited for everyone to be ready, when the flap of the cooch tent opened, and Darcy came out. She was still in her nightgown and robe, holding a bowl in one hand and a thick, wet glob of rags in the other. Her gait was unsteady as he watched her make her way over to the water pump and he wondered if she’d had any sleep at all. She set the rags down and stared into the bowl, which Steve only then realized was full of bloody water that had sloshed over the edges while she walked. The rags were stained too. So were her forearms and hands.

She swayed in place for a moment before she tipped the bowl and poured it out into the dirt. The ground was too hard. It splashed up onto her bare legs and Darcy turned, suddenly, and retched. She bent over, away from the water, the bowl, the bloody rags, and heaved up whatever she’d eaten in the last day into the weeds.

Steve jumped up and approached her cautiously. Over the sounds of her gagging she didn’t hear the squeal of the pump. She didn’t notice him until he touched her shoulder and pressed a wet handkerchief into her palm. She took it without argument, wiping first at her forehead and then at her mouth before she looked up, and then back down at herself. “Thank you,” she said softly. “I…”

He watched her eyes drift over the mud and the blood, on herself and around the pump. “I’ll clean this up,” he offered. “You probably want to get ready.”

Numbly, she nodded and looked up at him again. Steve felt his heart sink. You didn’t have to know Darcy to have been drawn to her. There was a sparkle in her eye, a smile always tugging at her lips, a rare and carefree spirit fluttering in her chest. “Thank you,” she said again. All that sparkle, all that life, gone. It made his own heart twist. “I’ll—um—” she held up the handkerchief he’d given her. “I’ll wash this and get it back to you.”

He managed a small, polite smile. “There’s no rush. I’ve got plenty.”

That was a lie. He had to borrow another from Bucky.

***

“This feels wrong,” Darcy said watching Gamora roll her stockings on, careful to place the tear between two of her toes so no one would see it.

“It is wrong, kiddo,” she said, not looking up until she’d rolled on the other. “But it's the way it’s gotta be. We can't stay dark forever.”

Darcy still felt sick every time she thought about plastering on a smile and pretending to have fun up on stage. Like everything was normal. Like Elektra was just off for the night. “But she's barely in the ground a week—"

Gamora threw open her trunk and started digging through a pile of sequins and silk, looking for something to throw over the black lace bra and panties she was already wearing. “A week, a month, a year…” she shook her head and kept shifting the armful of colorful fabrics. “There’s never going to be a right time to have to go back to work after losing someone.”

She couldn’t help the way her eyes rolled, though she managed to bite back a scoff at how easily Gamora was ready to move on. “You're talking like she passed from the flu,” she muttered, the words biting her own tongue as she spit them out. “Like it was peaceful or natural—like they didn’t throw her away like some piece of trash nobody cares about.”

At that, Gamora did stop. She stood up and let the trunk slam shut with a heavy _thud_ before she turned back to Darcy with her mouth set in a firm line. “I know exactly what they did. I was there too. And you weren't the only one who loved her, you know.” Darcy felt an instant wash of guilt, but if Gamora caught it on her face, she didn’t let it detract her. “Just because I don’t broadcast my feelings for the whole world to see doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happened to Ellie.” She took a deep breath, closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she’d regained that maddeningly even tone and sense of calm. “But I'm going back to work because she _wasn't_ a piece of trash no one cared about. She was part of our _family_ , Darcy. And we provided for each other. And now I have to get back to providing for my family the only way I can.” She placed a hand on her hip and arched her eyebrows. “What are you going to do?”

Darcy opened her mouth and closed it again. It felt like Gamora was waiting for an apology, but she couldn’t make herself say the words. She wasn’t sorry that none of this felt right, that she didn’t want to go back to work, that she thought they deserved longer to grieve and mourn Ellie’s loss without having to throw themselves right back to the animals that had taken her from them.

She didn’t say anything but turned back to the mirror and began putting on her red lipstick. Gamora came up behind her in the mirror and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said quietly, before she squeezed Darcy’s shoulder. “You just focus on dancing for now; don’t worry about taking any appointments.”

Darcy’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Peter's not gonna like that.”

Gamora shrugged and bent to open the trunk again. “Probably not,” she said easily before she offered a small, mischievous smile. “But it's been too long since we've had a good argument. I'm gettin' bored.”

They painted their eyes and lips and the music played and the show went on. But Darcy couldn’t enjoy it the way she had before. When they’d danced with Elektra, it felt like they were the ones in control, they were the ones holding all the cards, making these rough, tough men beg for more, throwing money and compliments and promises their way for just a little more of what they had to offer.

But now, every time Darcy let her eyes scan the crowds, there was a sliver of ice in her heart as she wondered which of these men wouldn’t think twice about killing her, too.

So, she danced, and she giggled on cue and went through all the motions like she had before.

But her red light stayed off for a month.

***

Steve squinted in the sunlight over to where Quill was standing, watching him paint. “Help you, Quill?”

Cypress, Texas was unyieldingly hot and muggy in the middle of August. Sweat had been rolling down his back five minutes after he’d started this detailing job and unless Quill had a glass of water or a soda in his back pocket, he wasn’t too interested in what he had to say.

Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “I was just watching you work—you really have a talent for this stuff.”

“Thanks,” Steve said, dropping his paint brush back into the pot of black. There was another uncomfortable silence before he cleared his throat. “Look, if you came here to jaw, go for it, but I’ve gotta get this finished so it can dry before sundown.”

Peter shuffled his feet. “You don’t have a lady, do you Rogers?”

Steve offered a half-smile of bemusement. “What makes you say that?” Though it had to be common knowledge by now.

“Well,” Peter rolled a shoulder and glanced around the empty midway. “It’s half my job to spot the ones who look like they need their candle waxed.”

He snorted and shook his head. “Yeah, well, who don’t around here?”

“Not like you, pal.” It was Quill’s turn to shake his head. “This is just my professional opinion, but I’d say you got the biggest pair ‘a blue balls in three states, at least.”

Steve nodded thoughtfully. “Well thanks for that assessment, Doc. I’ll take it under advisement.” He dropped the brush back into the black oil paint again.

“You oughtta,” Quill said, an edge of warning to his voice. “I knew a guy back in Chicago, we all called him Drax—”

“Uh-huh.”

“Had himself a blowout.”

Steve blinked and looked back to Quill. “Excuse me?”

“His wife died, and he swore off women—cold turkey, understand?”

“Alright.”

“Lasted about a year, maybe two? Then his left nut just… _ka-pow!_ That sucker popped one day. Like a cherry bomb,” Quill shook his head sadly. “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Steve set down his paintbrush again and turned to stare at Peter. “Quill, that’s gotta be the biggest load of shit I’ve ever heard in my life.”

The other man’s smile had taken on the shine he usually only saved for his introductions up on the bally. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” he reasoned. “Don’t change the fact that you need a roll, my friend. Somethin’ fierce.”

He looked around the midway again. “Show me where I’m supposed to find the time to chase skirts when Fury’s got us settin’ down somewhere new every two nights?”

Peter scoffed and waved a hand in Steve’s direction. “Not _skirts,_ ” he laughed. “I’m not here to talk to you about romance, Valentino, Jesus Christ.”

“What then?” he demanded, his patience running short. “What the hell is this about?”

Peter looked hesitant again. “It’s about Darcy, actually.”

“Darcy?” he repeated skeptically. “What about Darcy?”

“What do you think about her?”

He blanked and felt his mouth open and close once before he coughed. “She’s…fine,” he shrugged.

“Fine?” Quill scoffed. “What’s the matter? Not pretty enough for you?”

“Of course not,” Steve said quickly. “I just…I don’t know what you’re asking—”

“A favor, mostly.”

“Favor?”

Quill dropped his sales pitch and his shoulders at the same time. “Look, she’s still all mixed up about what happened to Ellie back in Anniston.”

At the mention of Ellie, Steve swallowed hard and glanced down at the dusty and worn wooden boards beneath his feet. “That’s her right,” he said diplomatically. If he was being honest, he was still pretty mixed up about what happened in Anniston, too. And he’d barely known her.

“Sure, it’s her right,” Peter agreed. “But it’s bad for business. Real bad. She hasn’t let me book her up with anyone in weeks. Says she doesn’t feel like it.”

“If she doesn’t feel like it, she doesn’t feel like it,” Steve grumbled, wishing Quill had decided he wanted to be friends with Sam or Bucky or literally anybody else besides himself. “I don’t know what you think I can do for her—like you said, I’m not exactly Valentino.”

“That’s why I’m coming to you,” Quill said. “It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. She’s a professional—she just needs to be reminded of that and get back in the swing of things with someone…y’know, familiar. Someone she knows isn’t going to hurt her. And in the meantime, you get to blow off some a’ that steam you’ve been building up for God knows how long.”

Steve studied him for a long time before he started shaking his head again. “I don’t know, Quill…that sounds…”

Quill held up his hands. “Listen, I know she likes you,” he said, stopping Steve’s disagreement in its tracks. How did Quill know that? And how much did she like him? “You think about it,” he went on. “Come by the tent after the last show tonight—after you’re closed up on your side; I’ll make sure her schedule’s clear.”

“Peter…”

“Or don’t,” he shrugged. “You show up, that’s fine. You don’t show up, that’s fine too.” He smiled again. “Ball’s in your court.” He nodded to the canvas. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

Steve went back to work, but his mind wasn’t on the black outlines and faded colors he was filling in. It had drifted back a few weeks, to a lake they’d set up beside in Louisiana. And the memory of Darcy, standing naked a few yards out from the shore, washing her hair in the silver-blue predawn light. He’d stood for too long, transfixed by her creamy pale skin and the thick, dark curls that fell over her shoulders and clung to her. She almost seemed to glow in stark contrast to the way the light made the water look black. The curve of her waist and the flair of her hips in balance with her round breasts. The unguarded look on her face. She reminded him of the Lady of the Lake and his fingers itched for a blank page and a pencil. He’d watched as she dipped beneath the water to rise the suds from her scalp but hadn’t been able to make himself move in time for her not to notice she had an audience when she resurfaced.

She’d stared right back at him, her wet hair hanging like a curtains over the tops of her breasts; water droplets sliding from her jaw, racing down her arms and stomach. He knew he should apologize, or at least _move_ , but he couldn’t make himself do either as long as she stayed looking at him. Passive, curious, casting a spell that made him feel like they were the only two people in the world.

“Goddamnit,” he muttered, frowning as he brushed on an ugly stripe of murky yellow by mistake. Steve sighed, back on the dusty midway and forced himself to keep his mind on his work.

***

Gamora stopped, her fingers mid-twist with one of Darcy’s curls. She pulled the bobby pins out of her mouth and frowned. “Steve Rogers?” she repeated. “The roustie?”

“Roustie?” Peter sounded indignant as Darcy’s stomach gave an unpleasant flip. “He’s an artist!” She watched in the mirror as he sat on the edge of his and Gamora’s bed, trying—and failing—to look innocent. “He’s got his own slot in the tenner! Sure, Fury’s got him repainting the banners, too, but—"

“He’s a _carny_ , Peter,” Gamora reminded sharply.

“We don’t roll with trade,” Darcy added, meeting his eyes in the reflection. “Ain’t that the rule?”

“It’s one of them,” Gamora agreed, not taking her eyes off her husband. “It’s a good rule and one I know you know. Forget it, she’s not doing it.”

“Now, don’t you think she’s old enough to be deciding who she will and won’t entertain?”

“She is,” Darcy piped up before a familiar headache could blossom behind her eyes. “And I don’t think it’s a good idea, Quill.”

Gamora returned to her work on Darcy’s hair. “It _isn’t_ a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Her laugh turned into a wince as Gamora slid a pin roughly against her scalp. “You try turning a trick with someone you have to see at breakfast the next morning, for one thing.”

“Whose idea was this?” Gamora asked in a flat tone. She didn’t look up from Darcy’s next curl.

In the mirror, Peter floundered again. “I—it—what do you mean?”

“Who came up with this?” Darcy rephrased.

Gamora slid another pin into place before she turned her steely gaze on her husband. “You? Or him?”

But Darcy knew the answer before Peter could concoct a lie. There was no way Steve asked if this was okay. He was too polite. Too shy. Unusually shy for someone so handsome. He hadn’t even been able to meet her eyes after she caught him watching her wash her hair a few weeks ago. Every time she was around since, he seemed to find a reason not to be.

“How can you ask me that?” Peter asked, looking wounded. “You think I’d set something like this up on my _own_?” He shook his head. “Poor guy practically _begged_ me to ask her.”

“That so?” Gamora raised her eyebrows skeptically.

Darcy scoffed again. “Why would he beg you? Rogers could get a dozen girls free if he wanted.”

“Well it looks like he doesn’t want a dozen girls,” Peter said, changing tactics and softening his tone as he turned to look at her. There was that look again, that dimpled smile, the sparkle in his eye. The same tone honeyed tone he used to make her feel special when she joined the act eight years ago. When he used to call her his lucky charm. “He wants you, and frankly, I thought it might help you out.”

“Help _me_ out?”

“Get you back on your feet.”

“You mean back on her back.”

“Can’t I do a good deed and help the people I care about at the same time?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, Quill. You’re known for your good deeds.”

“I can’t count the number of times someone has stopped me and said, ‘Isn’t your husband Peter Quill? The last pure heart in the cooch?’” Gamora quipped.

“That _is_ how they talk about you on the circuit,” Darcy added for effect.

Peter’s face puckered sourly. “You two should really switch out the act—I bet the rubes would pay big money for this high-brow humor.” He held up his left hand. “On my honor,” he said seriously. “I told him I’d talk to you about it and tell you the truth—that I think it’s a good idea.”

“You swear an oath with the _other_ hand,” Gamora stated plainly, still staring at him. “And I know this was your idea.” She shook her head. “Why would you do this to her?”

“I’m not _doing_ anything!” he exclaimed. The act dropped; Peter was a gifted liar, but he was unable to argue with his wife and charm Darcy into doing what he wanted at the same time. He gave her a hard look. “Listen, honey, we’re all still upset about Ellie and what happened, but—”

“Oh, for God’s sake—”

He held up a hand to cut off Gamora’s rant. “But we all gotta eat,” he went on. There was no edge to his voice, but it was firm. No room for arguments. “This isn’t coming just from me,” he added. “It’s coming from management—Fury told me he’s catching heat. You need to get back to pulling your weight around here and you know as well as I do that just dancing don’t pay the bills.”

Darcy opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again. She knew he was right. They could only carry her so long. She didn’t like the idea of Fury taking any heat from management just because she couldn’t get her head back in the game. And she’d always known Peter’s charitable spirit would run out faster than Gamora’s. If she could just get the memory of Ellie’s face from her mind—the sick purple bruising around her long, graceful neck. The letters carved crudely into her forehead. The black blood that had stained under Darcy’s fingernails when she’d helped prepare the body for burial.

“If you want her trickin’ again, then just say so,” Gamora said. “Don’t do this shit with Rogers—”

“It’s fine,” she spoke up finally. Peter and Gamora both looked at her, surprised. “I’ll do it. Set it up.”

“Darcy…”

“It’s fine,” she repeated and added a shrug when she caught a moment’s hesitation on Peter’s face. As if she’d called a bluff and he hadn’t expected her to want to go along with his plan. And maybe it had been just a bluff and he’d used Steve as a bargaining chip—intending to tell her that if she didn’t want him, she’d have to at least turn her light back on. That was something he do; Peter had a talent for making people do what he wanted, one way or another. “It’s just another trick, right?”

She could tell herself that, she decided as Gamora shook her head and returned to finish setting the rest of her curls. She was a gifted liar too, she thought, as they switched places and she started running a brush through Gamora’s soft red hair. She could tell herself anything. And there was no reason Steve couldn’t just be another trick.

Or if there was, it would do no good to wonder what that reason might have been.

***

He wasn’t going to go through with it, Steve had told himself all day. It was a bad idea mixing business with pleasure, and nothing but awkwardness lay ahead if he took Quill’s advice and paid Darcy a visit.

 _Ball’s in your court,_ Peter had said. _If you come by, fine; if not, that’s fine too._ The words rattled around his brain while he finished repainting the banner for the Mad Scientists. They’d chased him while he’d washed up for the night and put on a clean shirt for work. And they’d nearly worn themselves out by the time he’d scrawled his initials in the corner of his last drawing—two squirmy, underfed children who just barely gave him enough of a smile to work with while their mother chastised them from the corner of his booth.

They were practically drowned back down to nothing he was going to keep thinking about until another memory stretched and shook itself awake in the front of Steve’s consciousness.

Something else Quill had said.

_I know she likes you._

Did she like him? It seemed plausible, given that Darcy seemed like to just about everybody. But did she like him _more_ than someone else? Was there a reason Quill had come to him and not Bucky or Pietro or Sam?

He stopped as he cleaned up his charcoals and frowned. If she _did_ like him and she knew what Quill had asked of him…would she be expecting him to show? Disappointed if he didn’t?

His stomach did an impressive series of somersaults in the three seconds he allowed himself to think that Darcy might be waiting for him. And then he shook his head. Darcy had not asked Quill to set this up because she had some kind of school-girl crush on him. She likely didn’t care one way or the other if he showed.

Darcy checked her make-up and swiped at a streak of black on the edge of her eye. She told herself she wasn’t nervous. That this was just one more trick—that it was actually a nice thing Peter had done for her, finding someone she wasn’t afraid of. Even if he was in the trade and it was technically against the rules. He was someone who seemed like he’d be kind, at least.

She didn’t know much about Steve, but she didn’t doubt his kindness. Even if she didn’t still have his handkerchief, washed and folded and sitting on her nightstand from when he’d offered it that horrible day in Anniston, she would know that he was a good man. She had watched him go without meals every time it seemed like there might not be enough to go around. Had seen how he spoke to everyone the same way no matter how high or low they were in the pecking order. Whoever his mama was, she thought idly as she twisted her hair up and secured it with a comb, she should be proud of the boy she raised.

But there was a part of her that _was_ nervous. Not because she thought Steve would snap and beat her within an inch of her life or drag her to the forest and string her up. But because she’d been curious about him since the first day she’d met him. She wanted to know more about him than just what she could observe from a distance. She wanted to know what had made him stop and stare at her the way he had. She wanted to know if he could tell she’d wanted to dart back under the water and hide from his gaze for the first time in forever, but she’d been locked in place because she’d never seen anyone so beautiful in her life.

“Goddamnit.”

The sound brought her out of her reverie. A quiet mutter, like someone talking under their breath. Darcy cocked her head to one side and listened toward the flap of her tent.

Gravel and dirt crunching. The unmistakable sound of footsteps.

“This is fucking stupid,” she heard the voice again before the footsteps drew nearer and then retreated again. Pacing. Back and forth, up to the flap of her tent and then back again.

She smothered a smile between her lips and stood up from her vanity. She crept quietly to the seam and waited for him to come closer again. He stopped further away than before and turned back. Darcy lifted the canvas and popped her head out. “I thought that was you out here.”

Steve turned around; eyes wide like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Darcy,” he said, sounding almost surprised to find her here. In her own tent. “Hi.”

She smiled. “Hi,” she echoed. “You wanna come in? Or you wanna stand outside talking to yourself all night?”

“I, uh,” he looked sheepish and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I just um…”

Darcy pushed the flap all the way open and beckoned him inside. “Come on,” she said softly, grateful when he stopped his fidgeting and accepted her invitation with a nod. She inhaled as he made his way past her. He smelled good. Salty and warm and a little like— “Fury’s got you in the back of the ten-in-one, doesn’t he?”

Steve pushed his hair back and looked over his shoulder, a little line of confusion between his eyebrows. “Uh, yeah. How did you know?”

“I can smell the popcorn,” she said and bit back another smile. “Luis always sets up in the same place—right outside the back entrance.”

“Oh,” he looked down at his shirt. “Sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“No, no,” she waved a hand. “It’s okay. You smell good—it—” she paused and shrugged. “I like popcorn.” She watched him nod, a little half-smile at his lips before she cleared her throat. “You can sit down,” she offered, motioning toward the empty bed. “I don’t bite. Well,” she moved her shoulder again. “I do, but that’s extra.”

To her relief, Steve laughed softly and shook his head. “Uh, no, that’s okay. I just um—I just thought I should tell you…”

Unexpectedly, her heart sank at the idea of him not wanting to stay. “Yes?” she prompted softly.

“Well, it just doesn’t seem like this is the best idea,” he said haltingly. His hand found the back of his neck again. “Me…being here.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “You came to see me to tell me it’s a bad idea that you come see me?”

He opened his mouth and then closed it again. “It sounds kind of silly when you put it like that,” he admitted, a faint blush on his cheeks. He dropped down to sit uneasily at the edge of her bed.

Idly, she wondered if he was the kind whose blush spread all over his chest. The thought of that—of what she could do to see that for herself—nearly made her blush herself. She sat down next to him. “It’s okay,” she heard herself say, because it was. It had to be. She wasn’t going to keep him and force him into something he didn’t want to do. She offered a small smile. “My feelings aren’t hurt.”

Even though they were. A little.

“It’s not that…” he stopped, a little flustered. “I think you’re beautiful and all…and I like you fine…but—”

“But?” she asked, not lingering on the way the word ‘beautiful’ fell off his lips without hesitation. Like he really did think it.

“It’s just that I never—” he frowned before he rushed on. “I don’t mean never _ever_ ,” he said quickly. “I’ve just never—” She could almost hear his tongue forming the words ‘paid for it’ before he stopped himself and tried again. “Been with a…um…”

Darcy craned her neck to get him to meet her eyes. “Colleague?” she suggested. It was nicer than any of the words she knew he was trying not to say.

He looked relieved when he nodded. “Yeah.”

She watched him for another moment. The stiffness in his shoulders, the way he stretched his right leg out all the way when he sat down while the left stayed bent. She’d noticed him limping on that leg, despite how stubbornly he tried to hide it. “That the only thing you’re nervous about?”

He glanced down at his hands and shook his head. “No, ma’am. Can’t say it is.”

Her tongue ran slowly along her bottom lip in consideration. “Well,” she said after a moment had inched past heavily between them. “You don’t have to stay, of course,” she said, cautiously reaching for one of his hands. They were rougher than hers. His fingers still smudged with charcoal near the nailbeds. “But if you wanted to,” she turned his hand over and trailed a fingertip along the callouses of his palms, “we could go slow.” She looked up and saw his throat bob with a hard swallow. “There’s nothing to be nervous about with me, I promise.”

“Darcy…” Her name was little more than an exhale. But she didn’t hear a refusal, so she reached her other hand up to touch his face. Her thumb scraped the stubble along his jaw, and she coaxed him closer, pulling him down until his lips brushed hers.

It was a light, tentative kiss. She let her eyes close at just the last second, letting herself savor the taste of Steve’s lips for just one moment before she pulled away. Their eyes opened at the same time and she felt something go through her like a flash of electricity. Her heart beat heavily in her chest, pounding harder the longer they stared at one another. She opened her mouth to ask if he was okay, if he still wanted to leave, but she didn’t get the chance.

Steve’s hand slid into her hair as his mouth crashed back to hers. There was nothing tentative about this kiss. His lips fit perfectly with hers, moving urgently, almost desperately against her. Her arms wound around his neck and pulled him closer, afraid he would pull away again and leave her suddenly engulfed in flames with no relief in sight.

But he didn’t pull away. His other hand snaked around to press against her lower back, fingers splayed out across her silk robe. Her mouth opened easily beneath his; she let out a soft moan when he deepened the kiss and stroked his tongue over hers.

Her hands trailed over his shoulders; she slid down the left strap of his worn suspenders and went to push down the other before she stopped. Steve had pulled back, suddenly stiff and awkward again. “Don’t,” he said softly.

“Don’t what?” she breathed heavily, catching her breath, trying to search his eyes in the low light. “What’s wrong?”

He pulled back farther. “No,” he shook his head. “This really was a bad idea,” he said, giving her space to sit up. “I should—”

“Steve, wait,” she grabbed his hand and used it to pull herself to her feet to stand in front of him. She placed her hands on his shoulders. “Please don’t go,” she said, curling her fingers around the muscles she found there. “Please?”

She’d never asked anyone to stay before—never wanted anyone to stay before. But the few minutes she’d been wrapped in Steve’s arms had been the safest she’d felt in weeks. Maybe longer. Maybe ever. She wanted more of that—and alarmingly, she wanted to make him feel just as safe.

Carefully, she got to her knees between his. He stayed tense and she could see his pulse hammering below his ear. Her hand drifted over his right side again and his jaw squared with a hard clench. But he didn’t try to stop her as she slipped her fingers beneath the suspender strap and pushed it down over his shoulder. She kept waiting for him to say something, to shove her hands away or bolt outright. When he didn’t, she kept going, slowly, like she’d promised. Unhooking one button at a time of his blue shirt until she had to pull it from where he’d tucked it into his pants. His beige undershirt rode up when she did, and Darcy felt her heart stutter at her first glimpse of Steve’s scars.

Deep, thick ropes of mangled tissue were hidden beneath his clothes. All up his right side, she saw as she slowly pushed the fabric higher. An ugly tangle of dark red and shiny pink and dull white. Her hand spread wide over the right side of his ribs and he took a stuttering inhale, pulling her eyes back up to see that his were squeezed tightly shut. His jaw clenched hard together.

Darcy felt a lump rise in her throat. Steve’s stumbling awkwardness, his shyness suddenly made perfect sense. And what she had seen in his eyes the moment after she’d kissed him. That thing that felt like he was holding up a mirror and showing her the contents of her own heart. Loneliness. Deep and terrible and familiar. Had he ever shown these to _anyone_? Had he let anyone get close enough to touch him since this had happened? She didn’t have to ask—she could tell in the way he couldn’t look at her, how he squirmed like he was waiting for her to react, to push him away, or at least question what had happened.

Without thinking, Darcy leaned forward and pressed her lips to his stomach. She felt him suck in a sharp breath as she kissed the darkest, thickest cord of twisted flesh. Light as a feather, she kept going, peppering his chest with soft, sweet kisses, nuzzling her cheek over the contours of muscle beneath the damage, wanting him to believe she’d meant what she’d said—that he had nothing to be nervous about when he was with her. Wanting him to feel as safe as she had when he’d kissed her.

This was nothing, she wanted him to know. She’d seen real ugliness. This was just skin. Surface. It was nothing compared to what people carried around inside them. Violence and brutality that seeped out and tainted everything. The kind of ugliness that made people murder innocent women or shatter kneecaps over a gambling debt or leave their babies in carpetbags by a ferris wheel. This was nothing. This was merely evidence that he’d survived something that had tried to kill him. And he’d remained kind and sweet in spite of it.

She rested her hands on his thighs, pushing herself up higher to swirl her tongue across the place where a nipple had once been. Steve’s hand slipped under her jaw and tipped her head up. He held her gaze again. His eyes were a soft blue—little flecks of gold and green—and Darcy told herself it was just the light that made them look glassy in the moment before he sealed his lips to hers, pulling her up off her knees slowly. She pushed his shirt up, breaking their kiss long enough to pull it over his head and dropped it to the ground.

His arms went around her, and he turned to let her sit back next to him on the bed. As she curled her leg beneath her, Steve reached behind her and pulled out her comb, sending her hair falling down her back and over her shoulders. His smile was soft as he brushed it away from her face and curled a lock between his fingers. She touched his face and swiped her thumb over his cheek, bringing him in to kiss her again.

His hands trailed down her body as their lips met. Darcy arched her back and pressed herself into him when his palms skated over her breasts, hoping he’d stay there, but he slid his fingers further to the tied sash of her robe and untied it slowly, pulling back each side like he was opening a present. He pushed the soft material down her arms and drew his fingers lightly up her back, sending a shiver down her spine and pooling heat low in her belly.

She broke the kiss first, trailing her lips across his cheek and down his neck, scraping her teeth against the smooth, undamaged skin of his left collarbone while he slipped his fingers beneath the thin straps of her nightgown and slid them down, leaving the silk to slip down and puddle around her waist.

Darcy let out a soft moan against him when he put his hands on her breasts again. She arched into him, her nipples growing hard as he rolled them between his thumbs and forefingers. “I want you,” she murmured into his neck, letting her hand trail over his stomach and down to the erection she could feel straining against his pants.

“Want you too,” he exhaled before she met his lips again.

“You can have me,” she promised softly, popping the buttons at his waistband and slipping her hand beneath his remaining clothing to stroke his cock. He groaned and she opened her lips beneath his, sucking his tongue into her mouth and gripping him tighter, sliding slowly up and down. She released him carefully and tugged at the waistband again. “Take these off,” she said, pulling back long enough to reach for the little basket she kept by her bed.

When she had unearthed her tin of condoms and returned with one between her fingers, Steve had kicked off his boots and socks and was carefully sliding his pants and shorts down his legs. Her eyes lingered on his lower half for only a second to note that whatever had left him so scarred had clearly started with his right leg. The flesh surrounding his knee had the same twisted and tortured scarring as his stomach. She was careful not to hit it when she unfolded her legs and stood up, keeping her eyes firmly on Steve’s face as she pushed her nightgown over her hips and let it fall completely away.

His cock was thick and uncut, and his hips jolted when she rolled the condom on. She bit back a smile when he grasped her hips and pulled her back to him. “We still okay?” she asked, taking one of his hands in hers to guide it between her legs so he could feel how wet she was, how hot and needy he’d made her. Her other hand ran through his hair, pushing the straw-colored strands back from his face.

Steve swallowed hard again and nodded. Without her guidance, his fingers slipped easily between her folds and she closed her eyes, smothering a moan between her lips. He leaned forward and sealed his lips around her nipple, sucking it hard into his mouth while his fingers explored her thoroughly. With his other hand, he slid it around to palm a handful of her ass and squeezed, bringing her in closer. She straddled his lap, and took his face in her hands again, tilting his head up to meet her gaze. “I want you to look at me,” she said softly. He nodded again, holding her hips as she sank slowly down onto his cock. His eyes went wide and his jaw softened, dropping his mouth open a fraction while she worked her way onto him, inch by inch until their hips were flush.

“Jesus,” he breathed when she rolled her hips experimentally against his. Darcy leveraged herself on her toes, sliding up once, then again, before Steve’s grip on her hips tightened and he started to move with her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, letting the push and drag of his cock, hitting her in nearly the right spot, drown out anything she might be thinking other than how good he felt. How perfectly he fit into her. “Steve,” she whispered, unsure of what she wanted him to do, other than keep going. She liked the way his name felt in her mouth.

“I got you,” he said, his lips against her neck again, his hands spanning her back and reaching up into her hair. His voice was rough, the sound drew another jolt of heat through her. He dragged his fingers back down to her hips again and gripped her tighter, slowing his movements to pull her fully onto his lap. She pulled back, a question on her lips, but he looked up with a shy smile as his hair fell into his face again. “Let me sit back,” he said, motioning to the headboard. “You’ll be more comfortable.”

She giggled, grateful that he laughed too as they clumsily made their way backward on the bed while trying to stay locked together. It didn’t work. Darcy clambered carefully off his lap and let him sit back against her pillows before she straddled him and sank down again. “That’s better,” she sighed, her knees cushioned around his hips. “Thank you.”

Her hair fell in her face again when she looked down at him and he smiled when he pushed it back. “Anytime.”

They found an easy rhythm again; Darcy rolled her hips each time Steve thrust up into her, this new angle dragging _just_ right and pulling soft moans from her throat. She felt his thighs tensing beneath hers, his short nails dug into her skin. “Go faster,” she suggested, sensing he was desperately trying not to. “Please?” she added, dropping her lips to his ear. “Please, Steve.”

He sped up his thrusts with a groan and Darcy slipped her hand between them, finding her clit easily and rubbing tight, fast circles. Steve’s hand fell over hers, moving her fingers out of the way to press his own where hers had been. She sucked in a breath of surprise and ground down harder against him, chasing her release and hurrying his along.

“Darcy,” he choked out her name, pulling back to look at her again. His cheeks were flushed, his lips swollen from her kisses. Eyes dark with lust and ringed by impossibly long eyelashes. “Darcy I’m—I’m—”

“Let go,” she assured him, grabbing his face and kissing him hard, sucking his tongue back into her mouth. He came with a cry she swallowed down before her own body went taut as her orgasm snapped up her spine and a long pent-up wave of pleasure rolled through her limbs.

They were breathless as they slowed their frantic rocking and Darcy leaned forward to rest her forehead on his shoulder. Steve’s hand threaded into her hair and he gently kissed the side of her head. She wanted to curl herself up in his arms and stay there the rest of the night, fall asleep in this moment of being warm and safe and cared for.

But as soon as she raised her head, the awkwardness that had been waiting for them all night had arrived. Steve shifted beneath her. No longer trying to make her comfortable or pull her closer, but because he was uncomfortable, uncertain. Nervous again, like none of this had ever happened. “I should—uh—” he cleared his throat. “I should let you get some sleep.”

She wet her lips and swallowed. “Right,” she said, moving to untangle herself from him. She got to her feet first and grabbed her robe and nightgown off the ground, shaking out the dust before she slipped the gown over her head and stuffed her arms into the sleeves of her robe.

 _This_ was the reason they didn’t mix with trade, she reminded herself. No matter how kind and sweet, it was always going to be uncomfortable working with someone you’d just— “I’m kinda thirsty,” she lied, cutting off her own thoughts, no longer wishing to watch him get dressed and leave. It felt like she’d done something wrong. Only she knew she hadn’t. As far as business was concerned, she’d done everything right. “I think I need some water.”

He’d pulled his pants and undershirt back on before he looked up. “Okay,” he said quietly and nodded. “I’ll be out of here—”

“Oh, take your time,” she assured him, sliding into her shoes. “I’ve gotta clean up anyway. But, um…” she leaned in, suddenly shy and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Sweet dreams, Steve.”

She left him in her tent with a half-smile tugging at the corner of his lips. It made her feel a little less awkward—that smile—while she made her way over to the water pump and rinsed her hands off. But it didn’t change the thought that finally had the space to broadcast itself across her mind while she pushed a handful of water into her mouth out of habit.

The thought that told her she was wishing he wasn’t paying her. That Peter hadn’t set this up like any regular appointment. That Peter hadn’t set this up at _all_. That Steve had just come to her tent and made love to her because he wanted her. And because she wanted him. His kisses, his arms, his shy smile—all of him.

Although, the devil on her shoulder piped up as she made her way back, they hadn’t talked about money. Any other john paid in advance—the terms were clearly established before anything else happened. That hadn’t been the case with Steve. He’d given her the perfect opportunity, right at the very beginning, and she hadn’t taken it.

Because she’d never wanted him to pay. She just wanted him to be there. Talk to her. Let her get to know him.

Maybe he’d forget to pay, she thought idly, letting the idea bring a thoughtful smile to her face as she made her way back. Or maybe he’d still be there, and she could tell him she didn’t want his money, didn’t want him to be just another johnny and he’d keep his boots off and spend the night with her. If he did, she reasoned, she’d probably be able to sleep better.

She let herself think about that—what it’d be like to fall asleep with his arm thrown over her waist or wake up with her head on his chest. Kiss him good morning. Maybe pull him on top of her and greet the day in a much more pleasant way than she was used to.

But Steve was gone by the time she returned to her tent. The small space felt empty and twice as big without him and the sight of the money he’d left on her bedside table made her want to cry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. If you noticed the change in anticipated chapters, you'll see that the ending of this little AU has inched just a bit further away...

She didn’t see Steve for two days.

Well, she saw him for a moment, at breakfast the next day. He was sitting with Bucky, Sam, Natasha and Clint. She thought she’d caught him stealing a glance at her, but if he had, he was too quick for her to catch him when she looked his way. She had only just decided to go over and talk to him—like a _grown-up,_ for God’s sake—when Fury walked between the cook and the mess tents, hands cupped around his mouth.

“Alright children!” he called, his usual battle cry. “Get a move on! Let’s shake some dust!”

Everyone got up at the same time, beelining to drop their dishes and coffee cups in the wash buckets for the kitchen crew. Darcy wasn’t paying attention to anything other than wishing she’d hung her clothes to dry earlier and hoping they weren’t too wet to be stowed in her case when she nearly collided headfirst into Steve’s chest.

“Oh!” she took a step back in surprise.

He did too. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “Wasn’t—”

“Neither was I,” she said and let out a quick laugh.

“Right.”

They were stuck for too long. Someone had to say something, Darcy told herself. Anything.

“Stevo!” Bucky called from the edge of the tent. “You comin’?”

“Yeah,” he called back and then looked down to offer Darcy a polite smile. “See you later.”

“Sure,” she nodded and stepped to the right to let him pass.

Only he’d stepped to the left, so they wound up still in each other’s way. They tried again—opposite direction, still stuck.

Darcy closed her eyes and sighed. “I’ll go around you,” she said finally, reaching out to touch his shoulders as if to hold him in place. That had been a bad idea. All touching him had done was make her want to touch him again. The way he’d let her before. The memory of how she’d run her hands and her lips all over his chest, his stomach, his shoulders remained front and center of her mind no matter how hard she tried to shake it away.

But if he could tell what she was thinking, he didn’t let on. He stayed where he was and let her go around him, heading off to join Bucky as soon as she’d passed.

***

“Do you think I’m being stupid?” Darcy asked, the following afternoon as she held up a card in Wanda’s trailer.

“The Chariot,” Wanda guessed. Darcy flipped it to show her she was right before she set it aside. “I don’t think you’re being stupid,” she said carefully. “But I’m a little confused. What was supposed to happen?”

Darcy held up another card. Wanda squinted at it. “Nothing,” she said. “Well, I mean. Nothing that didn’t happen. It just…” she blew a buzzing breath through her lips. “I don’t know.”

“Two of Swords.” Correct again, Wanda smiled proudly to herself before she folded her arms over the table and hooked Darcy with an encouragingly inquisitive look. 

“I guess I just wish he…” she frowned. “Hadn’t left?”

Two lines of confusion appeared between Wanda’s eyebrows. “But you didn’t ask him to stay? Show me another card.”

Dutifully, Darcy peeled the next card off the deck. “No, I didn’t,” she admitted.

“Well then how was he supposed to know what you wanted?” Wanda laughed. “He’s not a mind reader. Temperance,” she added, pointing to the card.

Darcy flipped it to show her and then flipped it back to study the faded red wings of the character on the card. “Can you see through these? How are you doing this?”

Wanda smiled again. “Magic.” She laughed again when Darcy rolled her eyes. “You’re not being stupid,” she said again. “But what would have happened if he’d stayed? It would have been the same awkward scene just a few hours later.”

Her lips pouted heavily. “You’re probably right.”

“Wasn’t the whole point of this to have a good time while you get back to work?” Wanda asked delicately.

Darcy nodded and sat back. “No, you’re right. I’m just being silly.”

Wanda studied her a little more closely. “It’s not silly to wish things were different…but just be careful if you decide to go that route.”

She frowned deeper. “What route? And be careful of what?”

“Darcy,” Pietro’s hand dropped onto Darcy’s shoulder without warning. His sudden presence startling her and his sister like a jolt from an electric shock.

“When did you come in here?” Wanda demanded. “Have you been listening this whole time?”

He smirked. “You never see me,” he said with an easy shrug. “I’m too sneaky.”

She groaned as her twin pulled up the only other chair in the trailer. “Don’t you have work to do? I thought they put you on Colossus.”

He shrugged again. “They did. I’m done. She’s already up,” he said, motioning towards the window where they could see the ferris wheel turning in the early afternoon light.

“Then go find something else to do instead of sneaking around eavesdropping,” Wanda grumbled.

“Darcy,” Pietro turned to her again as if Wanda had said nothing. “In the old country,” he began and turned up the lilt of his fading Eastern European accent for effect, “we have a saying: _Ne lay, de yistʹ.”_

Wanda rolled her eyes. “Don’t shit where you eat,” she translated before Darcy could ask. “And you didn’t hear that in the old country,” she added, irritated. “Because we only lived there two months before Mama brought us here.”

Darcy snickered as Pietro glared at his twin. She’d been friends with Wanda since her first week, a few years ago. Fury had initially wanted to hire only her to fill their empty spot for a fortune teller; but she’d bargained for a job for her brother with the rousties, claiming he worked faster than anyone she’d ever seen. She hadn’t been exaggerating. After Pietro’s first week, the crew had started calling him Quicksilver, claiming he was little more than a flash of silver-blonde hair around the camp while they set up rides and tents.

If they didn’t know each other inside out, well enough to read each other’s minds and finish each other’s sentences, Darcy wouldn’t have guessed that they were twins. Where her brother was blonde and fair and flirtatious, Wanda was dark-eyed and dark-haired and kept to herself.

They may have lived most of their lives in Philadelphia, but the Maximoff twins had been raised in a community of entirely Sokovian immigrants. The accent added to Wanda’s mystique when she read tarot cards and the palms of the marks who lined up by the dozen outside her trailer each night. She wore a lot of flowing clothes, gauzy layers and stacks of bracelets around each of her delicate wrists.

“And he has a point, I’m afraid,” she said, sounding genuinely regretful.

“That’s not to say that if you found yourself in need of,” Pietro’s hand found her shoulder again, “physical companionship without any romantic entanglement—”

Darcy snorted. “I have plenty of that,” she reminded him dryly.

Wanda scowled. “You’re a nuisance,” she told her brother. “She’s not going to sleep with you.”

“She didn’t say that.”

“She did,” Darcy spoke up. “Plenty of times.”

“Well,” he shrugged easily. “If you ever change your mind…”

“We can go back to ignoring him now,” Wanda assured her. “Anyway, it’s not a good idea, getting sweet on someone you work with.”

“I never said I was sweet on Steve…” she grumbled, although she knew she was lying. She hadn’t wanted him to pay because that made him just like the rest of them—and from the second his lips had touched hers, she’d wanted much, much more than that.

“No, you didn’t have to,” Wanda giggled. “It’s all over your face.” Darcy reached across the table and swatted her playfully. “It’s refreshing,” Wanda went on with another laugh. “You’re just like everyone else. We all turn into mopey dopes when we find someone special.”

“You shush; this is a new ballgame for me,” she admitted lightly. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Wanda’s nose crinkled as she tilted her head to one side. “What do you mean?”

She tried to shrug, like it wasn’t that strange of a thing to have to admit. That she’d spent her whole life dropping men in one of two categories—family or johns. That to her, sex was just work. Even work she was good at and even occasionally enjoyed was still work at the end of the day. And usually, when she was working, she went somewhere else in her mind, left her body and came back later and no one ever noticed. “I don’t usually wake up the next morning thinkin’ about who was in my tent the night before.”

“Maybe not,” Wanda agreed. “But you had to have had a sweetheart before—someone not a johnny…No?” She stopped at the look on Darcy’s face. “No one special?”

She shook her head, a rare blush on her cheeks. “Who would I have taken a shine to around here?” she asked with a laugh. “I’ve known most of this crew since I was a baby.”

“But not _everyone,_ ” Wanda reasoned. “The rousties all come and go...and Sam—” her eyes went wide and she clamped a hand to her mouth as Pietro lit up like Christmas had come early.

“I knew it!” he crowed victoriously. “I knew you liked him!”

Darcy couldn’t help her laugh as Wanda jumped to her feet and started chasing her brother around the cramped space, threatening him within an inch of his life if he said anything about her crush on Sam to anyone.

In the ensuing chaos, as Pietro kicked over a table, the tarot cards went flying, and Wanda attempted to smother him with a pillow, and Darcy laughed so hard her sides hurt, she almost forgot what’d had her heart feeling so mixed up.

Almost.

***

_This goddamn banner is too big,_ Steve decided as the rigging gave way and it unfurled to smack him in the face.

“Lemme give you a hand with that!” A voice called, already grabbing the failing end and pulling it up so he could see.

Steve’s gratitude thinned considerably when he realized who had come to his rescue. “Thanks, Quill,” he huffed before he worked quickly to repair the rigging so he could stretch it up and begin the rest of the repairs.

“Anytime,” Peter said cheerfully before he stepped back and read the sign. “Portraits in Lightning?” he lifted his eyebrows. “They ain’t played that tune in a dog’s age.”

Steve shrugged. “Maria told me she got it fixed up for Carol and Thor to start using again,” he said. “I don’t know what it is; she just asked me to touch up the banner.”

“Craziest thing,” Peter said while Steve opened his box of paints. “Carol takes a portrait of one of the marks and Thor brings it to life. Makes it move on the screen like a real picture.” He shook his head with a smile. “People go wild for it. Glad Maria got it working again. She’s a real smart cookie—”

“Was there something else you needed?” Steve asked, swiping absently at his brow with the back of his arm.

The tip of Peter’s tongue darted along his top lip before he dropped his voice. “Just wondering how it went with Darcy the other night.”

He’d been expecting this, but it didn’t make him feel any less irritated. “It was swell,” he muttered, keeping his focus on the brush he was selecting.

He practically heard Quill’s eyebrows lift. “Swell?” he laughed. “Sheesh, with regards to Darcy that’s practically a formal complaint.”

Steve sighed, willing his cheeks not to burn. “It’s not a complaint,” he said, hoping Quill took the hint that he’d rather talk about anything else in the world than what had happened in Darcy’s tent. “We had a nice time.”

“Nice time,” Peter repeated quietly with a thoughtful nod, chewing absently on the edge of his thumbnail before he cleared his throat. “She do that trick with the feather—”

“Ah, Christ,” Steve closed the lid of the paint box and stood to his full height. “What do you want? A blow-by-blow like you get listening to the game on the radio?” Peter looked surprised and dropped his hand from his mouth. “She’s amazing, alright? Fantastic,” he added, waving a hand through the air. “Whatever you thought was wrong with her sure as hell isn’t—”

Quill held his hands up again, this time defensively. “Whoa there, tiger!” he exclaimed. “I never said there was one thing wrong with her,” he reminded. “I just tagged you in to make sure _she_ remembered there’s nothing wrong with her.” He seemed to be waiting for Steve to relax, apologize for snapping and hand over the lurid details he’d come looking for. When that didn’t immediately happen, he coughed again. “Which it seems like you did so…” His hands went back into his pockets.

“Sorry,” Steve said finally. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off.” He shook his head. “Just gotta lot of work to do and I don’t feel good talking about Darcy like she’s…” he trailed off and coughed. “Feels disrespectful is all. Going into detail like that.”

Peter studied him for a long moment before the very edge of his lips slid upward. “You really are one in a million, you know that, Rogers?”

Steve rolled his eyes and returned to work. “Doesn’t say much for the rest of you,” he muttered.

“No,” Peter shook his head. “Certainly doesn’t.” He swatted Steve on the shoulder. “I’ll let you get back to it.”

“Thanks,” Steve said. He could hear Peter as he wandered off, heard him say the word _disrespectful_ to himself, like it was something he’d never thought of before.

He got to work, touching up and repainting the most faded parts of the old banner first, ensuring the name of the act was readable again before he started on the fine details. He shouldn’t have lost his temper with Quill—shouldn’t even have a temper to begin with, he reminded himself. He had no reason to be chewing himself up like he’d been. Everything with Darcy _had_ been swell…fantastic…amazing. He should have been feeling great—not guilty and awkward every time he thought about her.

Or rather, about how he’d left her. The little flash of hurt he’d seen in her eyes when he said he should leave. The way she couldn’t quite look at him as she’d hurried to get her clothes back on. How she’d darted out of her own tent so fast he didn’t even have a chance to ask how much he owed her. Though, he considered as he swished his brush through the water to clean it off, that was probably for the best. He’d already done a thorough job of muddying things between them by that point, he couldn’t imagine he would have navigated the payment portion of their transaction any better.

But she hadn’t expected him to stay—had she? That couldn’t have been how she normally did things. And he certainly wasn’t going to ask if he _could_ stay, even though it would have been too easy to do just that. Everything about Darcy was warm and soft and inviting and all he’d wanted was to have a reason to stay in her bed with all her warmth and sweetness surrounding him.

But that wasn’t the nature of their arrangement. The arrangement he’d agreed to when he’d let her kiss him, touch him. When he’d forced her to confront his insecurities for him and she’d managed to make him feel like a whole man again. A whole person.

Maybe he’d be in a better mood if it didn’t feel like she was avoiding him. Not that they’d had much time to see each other between packing up, traveling and setting down in a new town, but the handful of times he’d managed to catch her eye or run into her at the mess, she seemed flustered. Almost embarrassed.

Steve sighed and rubbed at his temples. He should have just told Quill no when he’d asked him in the first place. Then they wouldn’t have this awkward barrier between them of not knowing each other well enough to be friends but knowing each other _too_ well to be just acquaintances or co-workers. And then maybe he could have worked up the courage to talk to her like a person instead of using her the way he had.

And then maybe—just maybe—things would be different between them.

***

Bucky was running the ferris wheel when Darcy found him that night between shows. She waited as he loaded a little girl in a patched dress with heavy braces on her legs into the car beside her younger brother. Darcy smiled as the child held out a small strip of tickets and Bucky shook his head.

“Your money’s no good here, sweetheart,” she heard him say quietly. “You save those for something else and say hi to the man in the moon for me.” He tapped her lightly on the tip of her nose and closed the bar, making sure they were both locked in tight before he started the ride again.

“You old softy,” Darcy commented, sidling up next to him, watching the two children grip each other’s hands with excitement as they rose into the air toward the bright, full moon.

Bucky smiled. “Don’t tell Fury.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she assured him. Although Fury had a bigger soft spot than any of them.

“You lookin’ for Steve?” he asked. He leaned against the rail with his hand resting on the lever, keeping his eyes on the riders overhead.

“Nah, I figured he’s working.”

“He is,” Bucky assured her before he glanced over and offered a half-smile. “Probably wouldn’t mind if you stopped by for a visit.”

Darcy bit her lip, wondering how much Steve had told him. “I’m sure he’s got a line,” she said after a moment of hesitation. “Could you just—I mean, if you see him—”

“I’ll tell him,” he said. “You want he should stop by your tent?”

She nodded. “I’ll be free about an hour after we close down.”

He mirrored her nod. “You got it.”

“Thanks,” she smiled and turned to leave, but stopped herself. “He’s a…good guy,” she said haltingly. “Isn’t he?”

“Steve?” Bucky asked a moment before he shook his head. “No,” he said, surprising her for a second before his smile widened. “He’s the best one there is.”

The second show didn’t go as well as the first. The crowd was always rougher on the late take and this group was so rowdy that Peter cancelled the blow-off. By the time Darcy was able to get off stage, fulfill her obligations and turn her light off, she was tired and had nearly forgotten about her conversation with Bucky. Her feet and jaw were aching, and she told herself that it would be for the best if her message hadn’t been delivered, or if Steve just decided not to show.

She’d curled up on her bed with the latest Agatha Christie she’d borrowed from Hope and promptly dismissed the rest of the world.

She heard the knock when she was already a chapter and a half in and didn’t look up from the page as she called, “Come in.”

The flap opened and Steve ducked inside. “Hey,” he said with a small smile, straightening back up to his full height and pushing back the hair that had fallen into his eyes.

Darcy set the bookmark in its place and stood up. “Hey,” she echoed, brushing at invisible lint on her robe before she looked up. Steve was still smiling, like he was thinking of something funny. “What?”

He motioned to her. “Just didn’t know you wore specs.”

She felt herself blanch and then go pink as she reached up and yanked her glasses off her face. “Just for reading,” she said quickly, tucking them back into her pocket.

“No,” he shook his head. “You don’t have to take ‘em off, they look nice.”

She smiled. Steve was just being kind. Her glasses were old, cheap, too round for her face and made her look like an old lady when they slid down her nose. They did plenty, but ‘look nice’ was not on the list. “Uh, thanks for coming,” she said, remembering that she’d asked him here for a reason. And it wasn’t just so he could tell her she looked good.

“Of course,” he said and paused. “I was thinking—”

“About the other night—” Darcy began at the same time.

They both stopped and Steve’s ears reddened. “You go ‘head,” he nodded.

But she shook her head. “Please; you first.” _Tell me what you’re thinking,_ she thought, _so I know what to say._

He rubbed at the back of his neck again. “I was just… Well, about the other night.” He began, tripping on the words a little. “It was nice—great, really—but uh,” he coughed. “Probably wasn’t the best idea.”

She nodded. It _hadn’t_ been the best idea. It had been against the rules and it never should have happened. But it _had_ happened and it had been wonderful and Steve was right. They shouldn’t do it again. It would only complicate things. “I agree,” she said evenly.

“It’s just that…well, we work together,” he went on like she still might need convincing. “And it might make things uncomfortable for you if…y’know, you started bending the rules.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” she smiled. She didn’t bother telling him that the rules only applied if he kept paying her. She didn’t think there was any rule that said she couldn’t see whoever she wanted off the clock. But that’s not what Steve had come here to suggest.

He eyed her cautiously. “So, you’re not…offended or anything?”

She laughed at how genuinely concerned he seemed to be. “Of course not,” she promised before she shook her head. “You’re a real fine man, Steve,” she said softly. There weren’t many others she’d met who would come apologize to a prostitute for not being a repeat customer.

He looked relieved. “You’re…not so bad yourself,” he said still looking just nervous enough that she didn’t tease him and ask if he was calling her a fine man too. “We can be friends?”

“Friends,” she repeated and held out a hand for him to shake.

He looked at it for a beat before he laughed softly, and they shook.

Darcy laughed and shook her head at how formal they were being. She kept her hold on his hand and closed the space between them. She stretched up onto her toes and brushed her lips to his cheek. They could do that, she decided. Friends could do that, no problem.

He turned his head just slightly and kissed her cheek the moment before she sank back down, and Darcy felt her heart stutter. His bottom lip was so full, and she was close enough to see the darker spots where he pressed his teeth against it. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his chest. See the pulse jumping in his neck. She was certain he could hear the way her heart had started to pound. Could tell how her mouth had suddenly run dry. She felt him brush his thumb over the back of her hand. It would be so easy to press herself against him and seal her lips to his. Drag him backwards onto her bed and show him all the reasons that just being friends was a terrible and unsustainable idea.

“I should—um—”

“Yeah,” she nodded but didn’t step back.

He didn’t let go of her hand.

He had to let go soon, had to do something to make her look away from the soft blue of his eyes, because if he didn’t—

“Hey, lucky charm,” Peter’s single knock on the tent frame preceded him ducking inside by only a second while Darcy to forced herself to blink and take a step back.

“Jesus, don’t you knock?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, and putting another step between her and Steve, just to be safe.

“What? I did,” Quill said dismissively, his head bent over a music catalogue. “Gamora wants you to look at—oh,” he stopped and looked up. His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I…didn’t realize you had company.”

“I was—”

“She had—"

"One of my lights was loose," Darcy lied smoothly after a moment. “Steve was just fixing it.”

Peter looked from Steve to Darcy and back again slowly before he nodded. “Thought you were just the artist these days.”

Steve’s shoulder rolled while he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Still remember how to change a lightbulb.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to work,” he said, turning his attention back to Darcy. “See you tomorrow.”

She nodded and found her voice enough to croak out a thank you before he slipped out of the tent, leaving her alone with Peter’s wary gaze. “What did you want?” she asked, keeping her arms crossed.

“There something going on with you two?” he asked, ignoring her question.

“You mean more than what you personally orchestrated?”

“Hey,” he looked offended. “That was a one-time thing.” A beat. “Wasn’t it?”

She rolled her eyes. “We’re just friends, Peter. He’s not going to be gumming up your hustle trying to come back around.”

He eyed her, still suspicious, for what felt like a long time before he coughed. “Can’t have too many friends, I s’pose.”

Darcy stared at him, suddenly exhausted. “Either tell me what you came in here for originally or get out,” she said plainly. “I had a bad night and I want to go bed.”

He handed her the catalogue. “Gamora said its your turn to pick something new.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll look at it tomorrow morning—let her know at breakfast.”

Quill nodded and turned to go, but he stopped at the flap. “Rogers is a uh…” he considered his words carefully. “Real good egg, isn’t he?”

She blinked. “Yeah,” she said finally. “Certainly seems to be.”

“But anything more than just friends Darce,” he shook his head. “You know it’s real bad for business. Not to mention it’s messy as hell—”

Darcy sighed. She hated when he got like this. Unexpectedly fraternal, acting like his concern for her was out of love and fear for her safety and nothing to do with his own bottom line. “Good night, Peter.”

She was relieved when he left without another word. Her bed squeaked when she sank back against her pillows, her heart still racing and her gut still twisted, thinking about Steve and thinking that if this is what it was to be just like everyone else—a mopey dope, like Wanda said—it was awfully overrated.

***

It was two weeks later that Darcy watched Fury hand over the keys to the Chevy as she was finishing up her breakfast. She stood, brushing the crumbs of her stale biscuit off her dress and hurried over to Steve. “You goin’ to town?” she asked, only a minute after Fury had moved on to assign his next chore.

Steve looked up from the list he’d been given. “Yeah—you need me to pick something up for you?”

She shook her head. “No, let me get my pocketbook. I want to come.”

He nodded. “I’ll meet you by the truck.”

Wanda was hanging clothes when Darcy passed her, pocketbook in hand, a few minutes later. “Going to town,” she said, swatting her arm. “You need anything?”

The other woman shook her head. “Not going alone, are you?”

“No, Steve’s running errands for the boss,” she nodded to where he was standing, drumming his fingers on the hood of the truck.

Wanda raised her eyebrows and looked between them. “You two don’t seem to be avoiding each other anymore,” she said evenly. “That a good thing?” she coughed. “Or a very good thing?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Friends,” she repeated for the hundredth time. “Like you suggested, remember?”

“Mmm,” Wanda hummed with a clothespin in her mouth. “Sorry,” she said after a second. “I’m just not used to anyone taking my advice.”

Darcy laughed. “Well it was good advice,” she admitted.

Because it was. Despite the way her stomach flipped when Steve looked at her and the giddy sort of flush she got when he said something that made her laugh, they really were friends. He’d stopped looking so flustered when she was around, occasionally sat with her for meals or joined her for a cigarette before she turned in for the night. She didn’t think he could tell that her mind frequently wandered back and replayed the memory of the way he’d kissed her, the way he’d wrapped his arms around her like she was something soft and precious and made her feel like no one else ever had before.

Or if he could tell, he wasn’t saying anything. And that was perfectly alright with her.

“If they have Neccos, can you get me a roll?” Wanda asked as a breeze picked up and fluttered her long skirt around her ankles. “I’ll pay you when you get back.”

Darcy nodded and jogged over to where Steve was waiting. “Ready when you are, boss,” she said with a smile that he mirrored before he hopped behind the wheel.

They took the dusty road a few miles, into the heart of Broken Arrow. It was a larger town than most of the places they’d been setting down lately, but not by much. Darcy scanned the main stretch for signs of a general store. 

“What all do you need?” Steve asked when they spotted one and started walking that way.

She shrugged. “Some basics. Toothpaste, razorblades, spool of thread.”

“Razorblades,” he repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Sure,” she smiled. “I’m gonna shave my teeth after I brush my legs.”

He laughed and was quiet for a few paces before he glanced over. “You mind if I ask how you’re managing to shave your legs in that tiny little shower stall we got set up?”

Darcy grinned indulgently. “Takes great skill,” she said with a serious nod. “Gotta be able to balance on one leg like a flamingo.”

“Sounds stressful.”

“You have no idea,” she laughed. “But it’s a necessity in my vocation.” He laughed again and shook his head. “What?” she asked. “What would you call what I do? It’s not a hobby…or a…” she shrugged. “I don’t know. A calling.”

He shook his head again. “Just never really thought too much about what you do,” he admitted before he shrugged. “I mean—since it seems like you’re happy enough,” he added.

Darcy tucked her hands into the pockets of her dress. “Some days more than others,” she said quietly.

When she looked up from the dusty street, Steve was watching her from the corner of his eye. “And what’s today?” he asked after a moment. “Good day or a bad day?”

She took her hand from her pocket and tucked it under the crook of his arm instead. “So far? Today’s a good day.”

He glanced down at her with a soft, half-smile. “You ever get to the point where you’ve had too many bad days in a row, let me know, alright?”

She looked up and smiled back, pleased when he cut the length of his strides to keep step with her. “Okay.”

Something he liked about Darcy was the way conversations ebbed and flowed easily around her, threads of stories could be remembered and picked back up days later without feeling like they’d ever stopped talking.

“You ever think about doing something else?” he asked, three night later, leaning over to light her cigarette while her feet swung off the back of the luggage truck.

He didn’t smoke, but he carried a heavy silver lighter with the letters JR engraved on the side. The only thing he had left of his father. She exhaled and shook her head. “Dancing’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

“Hard to believe,” he smiled. Darcy was good at a lot of things—she was quick and smart and fearless when confronted with something new. He didn’t doubt she could pick up a new skill in no time.

Darcy laughed. “You ask around, they’ll tell you. I tried just about everything else there is around here—terrorized all the acts before I found a place that fit.”

He laughed with her and tucked the lighter back in his pocket. He’d heard that. Natasha was particularly fond of telling him how Darcy had thrown up the first time she’d strapped her to her spinning wheel and tried to enlist her as the target for her knife-throwing routine. “Never thought about something outside the carnival?”

She blinked and turned to look at him. “Where would I go?” she asked. “This is the only thing I’ve ever known.”

They looked at each other for a long moment before Steve dropped his eyes, wishing her answer was different. Not because she seemed unhappy, but because she really hadn’t ever known anything outside of a circus tent and a rambling caravan of old jalopies stuffed with costumes and cheap magic tricks. He didn’t like thinking about a little girl growing up like that, this hard life the only thing she had to think of as home.

His life in Brooklyn had been far from perfect, but he and his mother had taken care of each other. They’d had a roof over their heads and enough food to eat and she’d made sure he went to school and church. He’d heard the stories of how Darcy’s parents had abandoned her when she was only a baby. It was true that the whole carnival had taken her in and raised her together, but he thought it was sad no one had ever claimed her as their own. That she’d never had a permanent place to sleep or call home until she started dancing in the Carpe Noctem.

“Anyway,” she went on, tapping the first few embers of ash off her cigarette. “My life’s pretty swell, if you want the truth.”

“Okay,” he agreed easily, because he liked it better when Darcy was smiling like she did when she nudged him.

“It is,” she insisted. “And ain’t all fornicatin’, you know,” she played up her immitation of the thick southern accent that hung as heavy in the air as the humidity.

“I didn’t know,” he said honestly.

“Okay,” she relented. “Mostly, yes, that’s what it is. But sometimes they pay me for other things.”

He knew he shouldn’t ask. That any details she’d share would add to the picture show that kept him up at night. The same one that had been playing in his head ever since the first moment her lips had touched his. Memories of her soft skin and teasing, talented tongue that mingled with unbridled jealousy at the thought of her sharing that with any other man who had enough money to spend time in her bed. But he’d always been a glutton for punishment. “Like what?”

She shrugged and put her cigarette to her lips again for a long inhale. “Crying about their wives, mostly,” she said on her exhale. “Always the same sob story about how she has no time for him anymore since she’s got six children to feed these days.” She shook her head. “Have to stop myself from telling any of ‘em that his wife would have a lot more energy if he’d get off his ass and help out around the house and take care of the kids he fattened her up with.”

Steve snorted. “Something tells me that’d be bad for business.”

She grinned back. “Someone wanted me to read to him once,” she said, her face softening. “Said he just liked the sound of my voice—and he couldn’t read for himself.”

“Any other outliers?”

She cleared her throat. “Guy in Kentucky asked if he could paint my toenails.”

Steve felt his eyebrows lift again. “What’d you say to that?”

She held out her hand. “Four bits, please, and you can paint whatever you want.”

He let out a low whistle. “Four bits? Pretty stiff, kiddo.”

“Pfft,” she waved him away. “That’s nothing. Gamora would charge twice that.” They were quiet for a moment. Darcy leaned back on her free hand and stared up at the darkened sky. The stars were hidden behind a thick cover of clouds. “How much do you charge for a portrait?”

“Ten cents.” He looked over to see she was still studying the sky, even though there was nothing to see. “But I’d draw you for free.”

He shouldn’t have said it, he knew that. As soon as the words fell past his lips, he wanted to scoop them back up and swallow them down. Darcy didn’t need to know that he would love to have the time and permission to capture her on paper; the curve of her lips, the fan of her eyelashes, the gap between her front teeth. Admitting that would go along with admitting that he was lying when he’d said he just wanted to be friends. That he’d been hoping she wouldn’t agree and would tell him she wanted more too.

But she hadn’t. Because Darcy was a professional. And he was a grown man with a crush on an impossible woman.

She looked over; a smile stuck behind the lip caught between her teeth. “That the same discount you give to all your friends?”

He felt the tops of his ears warm and he hoped his blush hadn’t spread to his cheeks. “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “Why not?”

Darcy opened her mouth to say something, but a breeze blew past and she shifted her legs to keep her skirt tucked beneath herself. In the process, one of her shoes slipped from her foot and hit the ground beneath the truck’s tailgate.

Steve hopped down first and picked it up. Darcy wiggled her bare toes while she waited for him to place it back on her foot. She frowned down at her feet. “Speaking of my toenails,” she said with a more purposeful, critical twitch of her toes. “Think I could convince Fury to let us pass near Union, Kentucky again soon?” she looked up with a smile. “I could use a touch-up.”

He grinned back. “I bet you could find someone a little closer to paint your toes for you.”

Her teeth pressed into her full bottom lip again. “Someone like you?”

Steve forced himself to laugh as he slid her shoe back on her foot. His hand lingered a little longer than it needed to on her slender ankle. “Heck no,” he said, shaking his head. “Not at your askin’ price.”

***

So they were friends who flirted. There was nothing wrong with that. At least, Darcy didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. She flirted with all her friends one way or another—Steve was no different. Except that he was. He was entirely different, but as long as she didn’t think about it too much or talk to anyone about it or acknowledge how different he was in any way, this little charade they were playing was just fine.

“Does this look straight to you?” she asked Gamora one afternoon, holding up the seam she’d been stitching to repair the skirt of one of her favorite costumes.

Gamora took the slinky fabric and squinted. “Close enough,” she said after a moment. “It’ll look fine once you put it on.” She looked up. “Why don’t you wear your glasses when you’re doing this?”

Darcy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like them.”

Gamora sighed and handed back the fabric, careful not to stick herself with the needle. “You’re going to—” she stopped, her gaze shifted past Darcy and her face fell into a frown. “What’s that about?” she asked under her breath.

Darcy turned to see Peter standing toe-to-toe one of the rousties—Rollins, she thought? She wasn’t sure. The wind was just enough to keep their words from being overheard, but the body language was tense. Combative. Peter’s arms were crossed over his chest. Rollins wore a smirk that twisted her stomach, especially when he jutted his chin in her direction and met her eyes for a moment. She turned back around feeling unsettled.

“I swear to God, if he’s in the hole again…” Gamora muttered, shaking her head.

“With one of the crew?” Darcy asked skeptically. Peter had a history of bad gambles, but usually that meant with bookies and loan sharks. Not rousties who were just as broke as the rest of them.

Quill sat down at the table looking distracted and a little rattled.

“What was that about?” Gamora asked.

“Nothing,” he lied and shook his head before he dropped an arm around her slim shoulders and kissed the side of her head. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

Those weren’t the same thing.

Darcy looked over her shoulder again to see Rollins still watching them. Watching her.

“You know, you don’t have to help me,” Bucky muttered from underneath the calliope Steve was holding steady.

“You want me to drop this on your face?” Steve asked craning his head to give Bucky a look. “I can.”

“Shut up,” Bucky grumbled with a half-smile Steve could hear as he began work on dislodging whatever had become stuck in the pipes that made it sound like a harbor seal in heat. “You know what I mean.”

“I’ve got nothing else to do until the gates open,” Steve reminded him. “Either I give you a hand—” Bucky’s snort interrupted him for only a second, “or I sit around bored.”

They worked in comfortable quiet, Steve serving as a jack most of the afternoon while Bucky shoved himself into tight spaces to clean and clear out garbage and dust until the calliope’s music blared clear and bright again and the carousel spun as ordered. It took a little longer than they’d expected and by the time the ride and lights had passed Fury’s inspection, it was mid-afternoon.

“Shit,” Bucky muttered, reaching into his pocket.

“What’s left?” Steve asked, peering over his shoulder. Bucky had two things left on his list. _Stage floor – Quill,_ and _Wheel – Natasha._ He smirked. “I’ll go see what Quill needs,” he suggested. “You go grease Natasha’s wheel.”

Bucky scoffed. “It’s not like you’re making it sound.”

“Sure, sure,” he nodded. He liked Natasha. He liked how bold she was and how loyal she seemed to her friends, to Fury, to the show. And he especially liked how she didn’t treat Bucky any differently because of his arm. He wasn’t sure Bucky had noticed the way Natasha looked at him like she had plans to eat him alive, but he figured giving her a chance to flirt with him without an audience would serve as his good deed for the week. He laughed. “I’m serious,” he added after a second. “You don’t have time for both—if I can’t fix whatever’s wrong with Quill’s bally-stand I’ll come get you.”

Steve grabbed the other toolbox from the roustie’s tent, and they parted company. He spotted Gamora first, sitting outside with half a sandwich in her hand. “Quill needs something fixed?” he asked, squinting in the sun.

“Mainstage,” she said, her mouth full and with a drop of mayonnaise clinging to her lip. She pointed to the Carpe Noctem’s main tent. “Darcy’ll show you.”

He ducked into the tent to hear the crackling white noise of the gramophone playing Helen Kane’s “I Want to be Bad” while on stage, a pile of messy dark hair and a pair of shapely pale legs hid behind two enormous fans of light pink feathers. “Hey,” he called over the music.

Darcy’s face popped out from behind the feathers and she dropped them with a smile. “Didn’t expect to see you today.”

“I’m just helping Bucky out,” he held up the toolbox. “Something wrong with the stage?”

She waved him over. “Loose floorboard,” she said, walking over to stage-right. She wore a pair of very short black shorts that buttoned high up over her hips and a silk top she’d tied up beneath her breasts, revealing a very appealing strip of her midsection when she bent down to show him which board was loose. “I almost broke my ankle on it last night when my heel got stuck.”

Steve tested it with the heel of his hand and nodded. “This shouldn’t take more than a minute,” he guessed, dropping the tools down on the ground. “Don’t let me interrupt your…” he coughed. “Feathers.”

Darcy giggled and returned to center-stage. “I think these fans are too big for my hands,” she bemoaned, picking them up again. “I’m supposed to be able to hold one in each and sort of,” she turned to face him and twisted her arms around herself to hold one fan behind her and one in front, “twirl them.” Her face fell in a frown. “Ellie used to make it look so graceful…but I just feel clumsy.”

He went to work on the board, glancing between the screws he was testing and watching Darcy spin slowly in place, keeping her hands locked so the fans stayed put this time. “You don’t look clumsy,” he said honestly. “You look…good.”

She smiled again, more to herself than at him, and went back to her rehearsal. “You don’t mind?” she asked. “If I keep—”

“No,” he shook his head. “No, don’t mind me. I’ll be out of your hair in just a second.”

Darcy restarted the record and faced her imaginary audience again. She bent her knees and drew a long circle with the toe of her high heel with one foot, then the other. It was hot and dusty in the tent. Steve blamed that for the way he was finding it difficult to swallow as he refitted the loose board back into place and Darcy crossed one leg over the other, turning on the spot before she looked over her shoulder and moved her wrist, giving one feather fan a teasing shake.

She spun again and faced forward, dropping the front fan just below her chin and then lower, holding it right over her chest when she leaned down. A dark curl dislodged from the pile atop her head and fell enticingly into her eyes.

“Darcy.” Quill’s voice startled them both as he stepped into the tent. Steve turned his eyes back to the task at hand, feeling like he’d just had his knuckles cracked with a ruler for daydreaming in class. “Maybe you should finish your rehearsal somewhere else,” he said pointedly. “Stop bothering Steve when he’s trying to work.”

“I wasn’t bothering him,” she said indignantly.

“She wasn’t,” Steve spoke up firmly. “I’m nearly finished.”

“Hope is looking for you anyway,” Peter said, ignoring them both. “She needs help with one of her costumes.” Darcy’s sigh was heavy as she dropped her feather fans unceremoniously to the stage. If looks could kill, Steve would have suspected she would have been stepping over Peter’s dead body on her way out of the tent. He willed himself not to watch her leave and keep his eyes on his work, hoping Peter would let him leave without having to talk to him again. “And here you are again, Rogers,” he said evenly, crossing the tent to lean against the stage. “Y’know, most guys get promoted from roustie, they don’t keep doing the job.”

“Just helping the guys finish their list for the day,” Steve said, twisting the first of two screws. “You have a problem with it,” he rolled a shoulder and glanced up. “You’re more than welcome to fix your own stage next time.”

Peter looked back at him, his expression unreadable, for just long enough that Steve returned his focus to the floorboard under his hand. “I’m gonna need you to stay away from her,” he said finally, just as Steve twisted the second screw securely into place.

He looked up again. “Excuse me?”

“Darcy,” Peter said unnecessarily. “Whatever’s going on between the two of you—”

“Is none of your business,” Steve finished for him, purposefully placing the screwdriver back into the toolbox before his fingers could tighten around it.

“Only it is my business,” Quill argued. “I don’t expect you to understand that,” he added casually. “Because she doesn’t just work for me—she’s practically like my little sister and I have a duty of care—”

He couldn’t contain his scoff as he closed the toolbox and stood up. “That what you tell yourself you’re doing when you turn her out every night?” he asked. “Taking care of her?”

Peter could have hit him for that—Steve wouldn’t have blamed him. But he didn’t. He only offered a brief, tight smile. “I know I asked you to do me a favor,” he said, appearing to choose his words carefully, “when I sent you over to her tent. And you did. I appreciate that. But that was as far as it should have gone. I don’t want you spending any more time with her. And don’t give me that bullshit about just being friends,” he went on quickly when Steve opened his mouth to issue a rebuttal. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. And I ain’t the only one.”

Steve bent a picked up the toolbox, setting it on the stage. He studied Quill for a moment. “Is it really me you’ve got a problem with?” he asked finally. “Or is something else going on?”

Some of the ire had dissipated from Peter’s stance and he leaned a little more heavily against the stage. “What do you know about Rollins?”

He blinked. “Rollins?” he repeated. “Uh—not much. Kinda rough, isn’t he?” he asked. He really didn’t know that much about Rollins—or Rumlow or Murphy, the two he palled around with—other than they all drank too much and had unpleasant tempers that their pocket flasks only made worse. “Isn’t he on probation for something back in Arizona?” Steve felt his brow furrow again. “What’s he got to do with Darcy?”

“Nothin’ if I have anything to say about it,” Quill said resolutely. “Got some idea in his head that if she was making time with you, she was obviously open for business for the rest of ‘em.”

“I never said anything about—”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” he shook his head. “Disrespectful and all that. Doesn’t matter. People think whatever they want to and now he and his ginned-up pals think the rules have changed.” He softened a fraction. “Look, you really did help me out before,” he said quietly. “So, help me out again and keep your distance, alright? Least until those few take a powder or the sauce knocks ‘em off the idea.”

“Darcy’s a grown woman,” Steve said after a moment’s consideration. “I don’t think she’d appreciate you making decisions behind her back about who she can and can’t spend time with.”

“No,” he twitched his lips in quick, half-smile. “Don’t suppose she would.” He gave Steve a once-over. “That your way of telling me to go screw?”

Steve smiled back, just as brief, and shook his head. “That’s my way of saying I’m not the only one you should be talking to about this.”

Mercifully, Quill let him leave without any further discussion. He returned the tools and had just enough time to wash up and change his clothes before the gates opened and the crowds rolled in. The good folks of Joplin, Missouri kept him just busy enough that he didn’t have time to wonder if he was going to do Quill another favor.

Only he didn’t have to wonder or decide anything because Darcy was waiting for him outside his trailer when he made his way back to get ready for bed. “Invite me in,” she said by way of greeting. She had her arms crossed over her thin kimono like she was cold, even though it was hotter than hell and twice as humid.

He let her in to the trailer Sam had been generously sharing with him and Bucky since they’d first been hired. There was space enough for three cots and a dresser where they each had a drawer. A few lamps and a bunch of free weights and equipment Sam used to keep in shape and not much else. Darcy looked around while he lit a lamp and cast the small space in long shadows. “This is nice,” she said, sounding genuine. “Where’s everyone else?”

Steve glanced around as he took his hat off and tossed it on his bed. He pushed his hair back and crossed to set his roll of pencils and charcoals in his drawer. “Uh, Sam and Hope rehearse after their shows since it’s the only time the tent’s empty. He won’t be back until morning, probably. And Bucky is…” he coughed and had to fight a smile. “Out.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Out?” she repeated. “With a girl?”

He pretended to shrug. “It’s none of my business.”

“Is it Natasha?” she asked, ignoring his attempt at deflection. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said, sounding on the edge of giddy in her excitement. “She’s been mooning after him for _months_.” She bounced twice on the balls of her feet. “I’m so happy she finally made a move.”

“So, what’s up?” he asked, watching her look around more closely, not bothering to hide her curiosity.

Darcy looked up from where she was studying a photo on the dresser—Sam’s mother and sisters outside the family’s restaurant in New Orleans. She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t want you to stay away from me.”

He stopped his needless, nervous straightening of clothes and the sheets on his cot and looked up. “You what?”

“I was listening to what Peter told you today—about Rollins and the rest of the rousties and how us being friends is bad for business—” she rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t need you or Quill to save me from him or Murphy or anybody else,” she said firmly. “I can take care of myself.”

Steve let out a heavy exhale and sat down on his cot. “And what if Quill’s right?” he asked after a moment to collect his thoughts. “That us being friends—spending time together—is just hurting you in the long run?”

She waved at the question. “He’s worried about it hurting his wallet, not me.” The edge of her lips quirked upward in a soft smile. “Anyway, I like us spending time together,” she said. “Don’t you?”

“Sure, I do,” he said immediately. Of course he did. The time he got to spend with Darcy—even just a few minutes here and there—was often the bright spot of his day.

“So, what’s the problem?” she shrugged. “We’re both grown-ups. Quill’s never policed my friends before; there’s no reason he gets to start now.”

“The problem is that I don’t want to make things harder for you,” he argued lightly. “I don’t like the idea of—” he stopped and shook his head. “Never mind.”

“No,” she insisted and crossed the small space to sit next to him. “What don’t you like the idea of?”

He took in a slow breath. “I don’t…like people thinking they’re entitled to you,” he said finally. “Or that you’re some kind of—I don’t know—commodity and what you want doesn’t matter.” He shook his head, flustered. “This whole life is hard enough without people thinking ugly things like that about someone—” He stopped himself again. The words were sitting on the tip of his tongue. All Darcy had to do was ask him to go on and he’d blurt them out. Someone sweet and beautiful and kindhearted and smart—if he started letting the words fall, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.

But Darcy didn’t ask him to go on. She studied his face with a line of concentration between her eyebrows. Like he was a puzzle she couldn’t quite riddle out. “Why do you care so much what people think about me?” she asked finally. Her voice was soft, the question hesitant.

Steve felt his mouth run dry again. “Because I—” he coughed. “You’re…”

She’d turned to face him, her knee bending on the cot, the hem of her kimono had inched up her bare thigh. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if she ever wore stockings. She had a freckle on the inside of her left knee. He had a sudden and overwhelming urge to know what kind of sound she would make if he pressed his lips against it.

“Steve?” she reached out and placed a hand on his arm. He looked up and into her wide, blue eyes. He told himself it was his imagination that she was leaning forward, toward him. “I’m what?”

He something stuttered in his chest. “You’re my— Well, I just mean…” he stumbled. “We’re—"

It wasn’t his imagination. She was leaning into him. And he was leaning into her. The two of them, drawn together. The whole world felt like it had narrowed to just her—just her blue eyes and her full lips and the brush of her nose against his. The word breathed against his lips the moment before they touched hers. “Friends.”

**Author's Note:**

> Some carny terms I picked up from watching too much TV and also reading Water for Elephants:  
> -Outfit: full carnival company  
> -Rubes/Marks: Patrons  
> -Ten-in-one/Tenner: Big tent with many acts/booths set up inside  
> -Cooch Tent/Dancing the Cooch: Strippers/Dancers/Sex workers (not all cooch dancers were sex workers, but these three are in this fic!)  
> -Barker: Man who stands on the midway and riles the audience up before a show (hype man)
> 
> To give credit: Ellie's death and Steve and Quill's conversation is pretty much a direct borrow, Darcy, Quill and Gamora's discussion and Steve and Darcy's last scene together are all heavily influenced by what happens in the show. 
> 
> \--
> 
> I would love to know your thoughts


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